God's Wonder Woman

Titled Wonder Woman. In case you did not know that, it was one of the top grossing movies. And it received critical acclaim. It received critical reviews. Because the woman they chose to be this Wonder Woman was Gal Gadot. And she is from Israel. And the Muslim world had a fit about using her as the heroine or the hero of this movie. There were a lot of complaints about that. Because at one time she was the Miss Israel when she was 18 years old. And she became a model. And then she became...got into some acting.

Others in America and around the world looked at her portrayal of this woman as an empowering vision. That women can be more than just something to look at. That they can have brains and also have beauty. The Bible is full of powerful, determined women leaders. Women of both beauty and brains. Esther, Ruth, Sarah, Hannah. And today we will be talking about God's Wonder Woman. Perhaps as you've never looked at it before. And her name is Deborah. Deborah. The word in Hebrew means be.

But this is God's Wonder Woman. And to appreciate this epic tale, we must dive first into the incredible backstory that exists. That we find in our Bible. Let's go back into the history, if you will. I'd like you to turn to the book of Judges with me. Our story, our epic tale today, takes place in chapters 4 and 5. But what led up to this incredible woman performing these incredible feats? We'll go back and look. We know the story that Joshua led the children of Israel into the Promised Land. And they were to go into the land designated to each of the tribes.

And they were to conquer the people who were there. And they were to get rid of them. But from all records and indication, there was only one man, Caleb, who entered his land and got rid of those who God had told him to get rid of. But Joshua gave them a warning as God had given to him. I'd like you to turn with me, if you're in Judges, I'd like you to turn with me first to the second chapter of Judges. I'll be reading today from the new Living Translation. Yours will be similar, but it might be a little different.

Okay? New Living Translation. Judges chapter 2 and verse 18 says, whenever the Lord raised up a judge over Israel, you remember he had judges. And this time, that's where the name of the book comes from. Judges is actually from Jethro giving Moses advice because Moses was the single judge, and he was having to judge all these decisions from two to three million people. And his father-in-law, Jethro, says, no, you need to divide that up and break up into groups of 50s and 100s and have men who could oversee this, have judges. And that's where the judging came apart, and you judged by the Word of God.

It would be the book of Deuteronomy that they had at that time that God would tell them the rules and the laws to live by. So in verse 18, going back there, when the Lord raised up a judge over Israel, he was with that judge and rescued the people from their enemies throughout the judge's lifetime. For the Lord took pity on his people who were burdened by oppression and suffering. But when the judge died, the people returned to their corrupt ways, behaving worse than those who had lived there before them.

They went after other gods, serving and worshiping them, and they refused to give up the evil practices and the stubborn ways. Go with me now, back to Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 7. Deuteronomy 7. This is what God told them before they entered the promised land, the land that He said He would give them. And I love these six or seven verses in chapter 7, verse 1. It says, When the Lord your God brings you into the land they had not entered yet. He was telling them, this is prophecy. This is God telling them before they ever went into that land.

Brings you into the land you are about to enter and occupy, He will clear away many nations ahead of you, the Hightites, the Gergesites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Barizzites, the Hivites, and the Debusites. These seven nations are greater and more numerous than you. When the Lord your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them.

Make no treaties with them. Show no mercy. You must not intermarry with them. Do not let your daughters and your sons marry their sons and daughters, for they will lead your children away from Me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and He will quickly destroy you. This is what you must do. You must break down the pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their asherah poles and burn their idols, for you are a holy people who belong to the Lord your God. Of all the people on the earth, the Lord your God has chosen you to be His own special treasure. Powerful words, and God meant every word of those.

Let's turn back to Judges now, as we continue our story here, and if you will, go with me to Judges 3. Judges 3, verse 5 through 7. This is what happened. So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parazites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and they intermarried with them. Israelites' sons married their daughters, and Israelite daughters were given in marriage to their sons, and the Israelites served their gods. Verse 7, the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot about the Lord their God, and they served the images of Baal and the Asherah poles. God said, do not do this, and they did it. God said, get rid of these people. They did not do it. So they continued to have issues and problems. The most, the largest problem they had was their spiritual lives.

They began to live like the people around them. They accepted the pagan worship. I'm sure even the holidays that they had at that time. Yet they knew better. So what happens?

They become slaves. God turned them over, as it says in verse 8. Then the Lord burned with anger against Israel and turned them over to these kings. And the very first one, for eight years, they were slaves. This was a land that God said is going to be yours, and it's going to be a land of milk and honey, and it's going to be fantastic, and I'm going to look after you, take care of you, protect you, and you will worship me and me alone. How fast they turn. And God let them be enslaved for eight years, and they cried out, and God heard them and raised up a judge. And his name was Ophneel. Ophneel. And Ophneel fought, and God was behind him. Ophneel happened to be, and it's amazing he was the first judge, he happened to be Caleb's nephew. God needed a man who could look to Caleb. Caleb was a man dedicated to God, and a fearless man. You remember Caleb's land that he was given was the land of the giants. He was to go in and conquer these giants.

At his age, he said, no problem, let's go. What an example. So you can imagine what his nephew saw.

And Ophneel fought and got their freedom, and afterwards he had 40 years of peace.

But what happened after the 40 years after Ophneel died? The people fell back, back into the worship, and God had to raise up a man called E-Hud. And E-Hud had to do the same thing that Ophneel did, and fight, and give them their freedom. And there was peace in the land for 80 years. But after he died, what happened? The people fell back right into doing the same thing that had caused them to go into slavery. So as we enter now, our hero's story, the hero's tale, as it is so important for us to understand the story of Deborah, we'd like to have you look at this piece of paper that I've given you here, because I think it's so poignant for us to have this piece of paper for us today.

It is the same thing that's up here. You can come and look at this afterwards.

I'd like you to look at the lay of the land.

And because to truly understand the scriptures we're going to cover, you need to know about the land. So hopefully you will look at that. You see the 12 tribes and their land that was given to them. Hopefully you will look at that. And you have to understand one thing. As I come here, and you can see in this one if you were a little closer, so see you can see it here, down right where it starts at Egypt and goes into the Philistines, Philistra, here, you'll see right here I have a yellow line that's not on your paper. You can actually draw that if you want. And the line just goes about a half inch off of the Mediterranean Sea Coast. This yellow line that comes up here to Megiddo comes up to Megiddo and then it actually splits and goes up towards Damascus and the other road up here goes up into Phoenicia, which is actually Asher's land.

I'll bring that up because this area here was a road and it was called the Way of the Sea.

And it was the main travel road for anyone going from all the way up here and where Mesopotamia and all that area down to Egypt. It took you all the way there and you could follow this trail. You could follow this road and that's where most of the trading was done. That's where shipping was done. If it wasn't done on the sea, it was done by land. This was a very crucial, crucial area and it ran right through the middle of the promised land.

But you must look when you see Megiddo up here. And as you see Megiddo, if you drew a line right there and then you went towards Mount Tabor and then drew a line straight up.

And the other one breaks off here and goes up to Phoenicia.

This trade route was valuable to anyone who controlled it. You could tax it, you could steal from those, you could ship your goods to those marketers that were coming from all different parts of the world and following that because a lot would bring in their goods from the sea and use this trail to take them to Egypt or to take them up north.

And you see how important this area of land was at the time. I want you to understand as we go into chapter 4 now, we will see just how important this is and just how important Deborah was to our story. So if we can, go to chapter 4 and verse 1. After Ehud's death, the Israelites again did evil in the Lord's sight.

So the Lord turned them over to King Jabin of Hazor. Okay, like you look at your map. Pull your map out. Okay, so what's he talking about? Hazor. Go up there to Naphtali.

If you see the tribe of Naphtali at the top, you might want to, as I did here, circle.

Hazor. Underline Hazor. That's where the king, this incredible king of our story today, lives, reigns, and that's where some of this takes place. Okay.

Now, so the Lord turned them over to King Jabin of Hazor. We have an interesting backdrop here because the tribes were all related. They were all descendants of brothers, right? But they didn't really get along that well. They had not come together yet because it was only a king, a godly king who would actually unite them because they all got into doing their own thing.

Oh, I've got good land over here, and so they not only, as you can see through the judges, not only have a lot to do with each other and pull together to become the powerful nation that God wanted them to become, but they actually fought against each other and argued with each other and did their own things. So let's go as we continue the story here. So we see where King Jabin of Hazor is. The commander of his army was Sisera who lived in Hagoshev Hagium. Hagoshev Hagium. Where is that? Go up here, right above Megiddo. If you look above Megiddo, you'll see that the Kishon River, where the Kishon River is a river that fed into the Mediterranean Sea, you'll see it says Kishon, or it gives actually the spelling there, Q-I-S-O-N, as they pronounce it. Right above Megiddo, on the other side of the Kishon River was this area that's Sisera.

He had his troops there, and he worked for the king. So here you had Hazor up here, where the king Jabin was, and you had down here, just above the river, was Sisera.

Sisera had the army for king Jabin, and so between the two, they could kind of control all that land. What more did they control? They controlled the way of the sea. They controlled all the goods, all the marketing that came through. They controlled the entire area, and they patrolled that road, and they would put a tax on you or just steal from you.

And he had a large enough army. It says here that he had 900 chariots. Chariots? Another outside reference check to see how many men said it was somewhere between 90 and 100,000 men in his army that took care of this whole area. So you can see this was a big deal. They were controlling all that area, and how dare you go against them? Let's go back to our story. Since Sisera in verse 3 had 900 chariots, ruthlessly oppressed the Israelites. For 20 years they did this. All this wealth that was coming through there, everything that was being raised, because basically they were a farming community at the time, and they had some very rich land. Grew all this stuff, but they couldn't get it.

But they couldn't do anything with it because they were afraid of the roads. They were afraid because they were enslaved. They just came in and took whatever they wanted to take as these kings. So you see, this was a Canaanite king, but before it was that Ehud had had to fight. It was the Moabites. So all these people that they left in these nations that God said, drive out, were now ruling them, telling them what to do the other way around.

It's a good lesson for us. God says, do something. We need to do it. If He says, don't do it, rather, we better not do it. Incredible story here. So then, after 20 years, then the people... I don't know if it would take me 20 years of that to cry out to God, but obviously it did. Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help.

And who did He bring along? Who did He raise up? A woman named Deborah. Now, why was it Deborah? It doesn't say why God called Deborah. This is the first use of a woman that we had seen.

And she was not only a judge, she was a prophet. She prophesied.

Where were the men? Was they too busy arguing among themselves from the other tribes?

We don't know. Was she closer to God? You must realize God uses those who are close to Him.

Where much is given, much is required, as the Scriptures say.

We're about to see some of her qualities here.

That in my own mind, my own opinion didn't exist in so many of the men.

So when a man won't step forward, God has to call and has no problem calling a woman to do a man's job, which is a condemnation of the men.

Deborah, the wife of Labidoth, was a prophet who was judging Israel at the time. She would sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel. See Bethel here? Let's go to the Ephraim. She was in the tribe. If you come down here to Ephraim, and you see Ephraim, right below the name Ephraim, you have Bethel.

This is where she would sit under a palm tree, a large palm tree, and people would come to her and she would judge matters. She was well known as they would come from various places around. From all indications of the Bible, there was not any other judge. It was just her at this time. So if someone had a debate or wanted to know what God expected of them, they may even have to come from Simeon here all the way to Bethel to ask her judgment.

It's interesting. She's not the only Deborah.

She's the second Deborah of the Bible, if you remember that.

Deborah, the first Deborah, was actually a nurse for Rebecca at the time. She was raising her children.

And Deborah, the first Deborah, was known to be a very hard-working Deborah. And she died before Rebecca, and they buried her where? Under an oak tree in Bethel, according to the experts not far from that big palm tree where the second Deborah gave judgment to all the tribes. But let's go down here. She would sit under the palm of Deborah between Rema and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. You see Ephraim there? And the Israelites would go to her for judgment. One day she sent for Barak, son of Abinaim, who lived in Kadesh in the land of Naphtali. Let's make sure you know. She sent for Barak. Barak lived up here in Naphtali. If you see Naphtali up here, he lived in Kadesh, K-D-S-H. Okay? So she called for him. Look at the distance he has to cover. She's all the way down in Ephraim, and he's all the way up in Naphtali. But he says, come on! She says, come on! I need to talk to you. God has something to say.

She said to him, this is what the Lord God of Israel commands you. Call out 10,000 warriors from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun. You see Zebulun in there, too? So he's saying, call 10,000 men out to these tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun, and bring them to Mount Tabor. You can see Mount Tabor on here, right up here, right above. Mount Tabor is right above the Kishon River. You see the Valley of Jezreel? The Valley of Jezreel is where the Kishon River actually starts, and it flows from there and goes this way and empties out into the Mediterranean Sea. There's one interesting part about the Kishon River, as it exists even today.

It is fed by Mount Tabor, and it is fed by Mount Carmel. And during the summer, the dry period, you could walk across it, and it's just no water at all. But then when the fall rains come, and even the spring rains come, and it starts raining and pouring at the top of those mountains, and it fills the mountains, and the water comes gushing like floods, and it floods that whole valley. And it becomes a huge, raging river.

They even talk about within 30 minutes, this river can reach depths of 20 feet.

So this is a major river, the Kishon River. Okay? Verse 7, he said, I will call out Sisra, commander of Jabin's army, along with his chariots and warriors, to the Kishon River. So all they're gonna have to do is just come down just a little ways, cross the river, and get in that valley, that flat part, the Jezreel Valley, bring all those chariots. You can't use a chariot in the mountains, hardly, but you can on flat ground. He's gonna say, I'm gonna call him down to fight right in this flat part, and I'm gonna have you be at the top of Mount Tabor. I'm gonna have you bring 10,000 men down on them. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? Except if you're the 10,000 men, and you're looking down at an army of 900 chariots, and possibly even to a 90 and 100,000 men, maybe that bravery kind of backs up a little bit, because you have to understand, they had been slaves under this oppression for 20 years. What did they bring to the battle? What did they bring to fight? Shepherd staff and pieces of wood. They were not allowed to have. They weren't allowed to have. Quite a few historians even point that out. When they're under the time of the judges, until they get freedom and reign, up until really Saul's time, when they conquered armies, they didn't have swords, they didn't have spears, they didn't have anything because they were not allowed to have them.

So all you're going to say, I need 10,000 of you men, go down with a stick, and you're going to fight this army 10 times your size with chariots that can run you down.

Trained men. I want you to grab this bunch of farmers and do that.

Quite a story.

Go back to our story here. Seven, I will call Cicero the commander of Jabin's army, along with his chariots and warriors to the Kishon River. There, I will give you victory over them.

Okay, you'd better because I'm not going to get it with this stick.

Did it require faith? Absolutely. Did all the men have faith? Not as much as Deborah.

Deborah knew God. She talked to God. God talked to her. God talked to her.

Finish 8, verse 8. Barack told her, I will go, but only, only if you go with me.

Deborah says very well, I will go with you, but you will receive no honor in this venture, for the Lord's victory over Cicero will be at the hands of a woman.

Deborah, she's telling him, you go lead, it'll be fine. No, I can't do it. Not going to do it.

I need you there. Did he lack faith? I'd say he lacked the faith of Deborah.

Maybe because he was called to be the general, and he was going to have to lead these men, and he was led by sight, not by faith. How many times has that taken us down?

We're led by sight, not by faith.

Continue our story. So Deborah went with Barack to Kadesh. You get that now? He had to come all the way down from Kadesh to Bethel, and now she's going with him all the way back up to Kadesh, where he's calling the troops together.

So this took some time.

Don't you believe they would be a little bit scared because they were having to cross the paths? They were having to maybe even travel the mountains and kind of hide behind the rocks as they were trying to make their way so that these troops, so King Jabin's men, spies, or whatever, wouldn't come and say, oh wait a minute, there's something going on up in your area up there.

So Deborah went with Barack to Kadesh. At Kadesh, Barack called together the tribes of Zebulun and Naftali, and 10,000 warriors went with him. Deborah went with him also. Where were they going? Look on your map to Mount Taber. They were going to gather at the top of that mountain. That's what they were told, to gather at that mountain. And then they would come down off that mountain into the valley of Jezreel, where they would fight.

Now, there's an interesting part in verse 11 here. The interesting part, as it says in verse 11, Now, Hebrew, the kenite, a descendant of Moses' brother-in-law, Hobab, had moved away from the other members of the tribe and pitched his tent at the Oka Zananim near Kadesh. They stick this in here. So here, if you look at your map and you go to the very bottom of where Edom exists, yet this is where this Iber came from. He was part of the clan that was Jethro the Midianites. They were way south of Edom. They were in the Sinai Peninsula, way down. This is a thousand miles away. What was he doing up here? What was he doing traveling all the way? Well, he was like a Bedouin. They traveled and they moved.

And you have to understand, why did they not have problems? Well, the Midians, as you would see at different times, they just kind of would join in with whoever is there, kind of blend in. They would kind of look to see who's winning the game. It's like when the dolphins play the Patriots. You got those and you stay real quiet when you're around that until all of a sudden your team went, hey, yeah! And if they lose, you're just going to back off and make this. This is similar to what the Midianites did. They saw that King Jabin was running this thing, so they just said, okay, yeah, King, we'll help you. We're good.

But you see, later on, they changed teams when things don't look so good. So let's, they just stuck that kind of in there. So let's go to verse 12. When Cicero was told that Barak, son of Abinam, had gone up to Mount Taber, he called all 900 of his chariots and all his warriors, and they marched from Hagashath, Hagim, to the Kishon River near the, and they went down to the valley where their chariots could be used. Then Deborah, then Deborah, said to Barak, Get ready! Look at this. Get ready! This is a day the Lord will give you victory over Cicero, for the Lord is marching ahead of you. She's not only a judge, she's not a prophet, she's a motivational speaker. She's like, tell her, Yes, she's the leader! Get up! Get ready!

Mind you of the movies that you see with Braveheart, where Gibson, actually, playing Braveheart, said, They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom as he led men into battle. This is her. This is her doing. This isn't Barak.

This is this woman standing before 10,000 men, saying, The Lord's gonna do this.

She didn't say, Follow me. She said, Follow, like God, He's going in front of you.

You can imagine sitting up there, I'm sitting down in a mountain, and I'm with 10,000 of my brother. I look down there, and all I can see is chariots and 100,000 men, and I got my stick, and they've got swords and spears.

But they saw her, and they saw her faith, and they saw how she was empowered by the Holy Spirit, and they followed her, and they followed God. Because it said, For the Lord is marching ahead of you. So Barak led his 10,000 warriors down the slopes of Mount Tabor into the battle.

When Barak attacked the Lord through Sisera and all his chariots and warriors into a panic, they weren't even gonna have to fight. How did God do this? It was God who did this.

Becomes obvious they didn't even have to use a stick.

Let's go over to chapter 5. Let's see how He did it, because it tells in chapter 5 how it happened. Chapter 5, verse 20, the stars fought from heaven, talking about this battle. The stars in their orbits fought against Sisera, talking about the angels, the heavenly powers. The Kishon River, the Kishon River swept them away, the ancient tor and the Kishon. So they were all down there ready for battle, and as the soldiers are coming, they're going, oh, come on down, look at these little ants coming down. And all of a sudden, these storms came, and this tremendous rain. It was a storm, and the water started coming off these mountains, and all of a sudden, it's like the 30 minutes they talk about now.

The land they were standing in, the land they were in, was 20 feet underwater. And when they did try to ride their chariots, it got bogged down.

Next time you need to fight a battle, don't you want God going ahead of you?

That's what this story is about. We turn to Him, we look to Him, and that's where we need to go. The Kishon River swept them away, the ancient tor and the Kishon. March on with courage, my soul. Then the horses' hooves hammered the ground and the galloping, galloping of sister as mighty steeds. He had all these horses, and they couldn't get out of there. They were getting bogged down, and the water was sweeping them away. And we know what it's like to have a flood here in Florida.

We know it's like to have a hurricane. Imagine that much rain just coming down all at once, and it's coming down on there, and you're just walking down there with your stick going, was this incredible or what? Would that empower you?

And I imagine I wondered how many of them look back at Deborah. What a judge. What a prophet. What a leader. What a woman.

So, Barack led his 10,000 warriors down the slope of Mount Tabor into battle. When Barack attacked, the Lord threw Cicerra and all his chariots into a panic. Cicerra leaped down from his chariot. Where they at? Look on your map. Cicerra, this great leader, all of a sudden, he's seeing his whole army wiped out. He jumps off of his chariot. You know he had the nice one.

And he jumps off that because he's afraid it's getting bogged down in the mud and the water and everything else. He takes off running on foot. Look where he ran to. Where does it say? Cicerra leaped from his chariot and escaped on foot. Then Barack chased the chariots and the enemy army all the way to Hagarsheth. Hagarsheth, boy him. Okay? Hagim. Killing all of Cicerra's warriors, not a single one of them left alive. You can see this as this as a stream came down, this terrible, this raging river. It was taking all of them back to the Mediterranean Sea because that's where it emptied out and that's where it emptied out. And those that escaped out of there and didn't drown, they were headed back home and all they were all caught up with and slaughtered. Not a single one of them. But here, here is their hero, Cicerra, who is in this battle and all of a sudden he takes off on foot. He's trying to be a Usain Bolt and he tries to run up and notice he doesn't go to Hazar. He could go to Hazar. Isn't that where the king is?

This is the king that he served? But how is he going to say, well hey, I need protection because guess what? We just got our whole army wiped out. Not something the king would want to hear from his leader. And I'm the only one left alive. Well, you won't be alive for long.

So he didn't go. He didn't go to Hazar. He didn't go to where King Jabin said. He went up here to Kadesh. Now, let's finish the story. He went up to Kadesh.

He said, meanwhile, verse 17, Cicerra ran to the tent of Jaiu. Remember Jaiu? She's the wife of Eber, the Bedouins, the wife of Eber the K'night, because Eber's family was on friendly turns with King Jabin of Hazar. It wasn't that far apart. King Jabin's running everything, so they're like, okay, hey, we're good buddies. Yeah, we'll trade this. Oh, no, no problem. Except now, I'd say word has spread. And Cicerra running on foot by himself? Uh-uh. She knew something was up, because for one thing, she'd probably seen this powerful general who never got off his chariot and looked down on most people. And now this guy, he's out of breath. He's alive, and he comes to her tent. So she is, the verse says, Yeah, Jael went out to meet Cicerra and said to him, come into my tent, sir. Come in, don't be afraid. So he went into her tent, and she covered him with a blanket. Please, give me some water. He said, I'm thirsty. So she gave him some milk from a leather bag and covered him again. Go over to chapter 5. Let's get the rest of the story. As in the Deborah song, and she tells this. In chapter 5 and verse 25, we see the inside of the story. And verse 25 says, Cicerra asked for water, and she gave him milk. Why? Well, according to this, in a bowl fit for nobles. So she not only, you know, she didn't even wash her hair. Let me give you something nourishing. You know, like, oh, oh yeah. She brought him yogurt. So many of them say she actually brought milk and yogurt and made it like curds and stuff. He was able to eat and drink. And let's go back to chapter 4. Back to chapter 4. Verse 20, standing at the door of the tent, he told her, if anybody... Isn't that amazing? He's calling the shots here. He's running. He's scared. But yet he's, wait a minute, I'm general. Cicerra. If anybody comes and asks you if there is anyone here, say no. But when Cicerra fell asleep, you can imagine he slept well. He had been running. He was so tired. He was exhausted. His finally thirst had gotten him. He was able to feel his stomach. He quenched the thirst. And now he knows, oh, this woman, she's gonna protect me. She likes me.

21. But when Cicerra fell asleep from exhaustion, she quietly crept up to him with a hammer.

Because as better ones, they move. And so they set up their tents wherever they need to move to.

They'll go somewhere in the summer, somewhere in the winter. They just move and move their sheep or whatever, goats. And so they will move. So they're used to having to move these tents and taking these tents up. And so every tent, if you've ever put one, has to have a peg that holds it down. Right? And I'm sure she set up a lot of the tents.

She knew how to drive one of these things in the ground. She knew how to use one of these. And let's see the rest of her story.

21. When Cicerra fell asleep from exhaustion, she quietly crept up to him with a hammer and tent peg in her hand. You know, I bet this caused a lot of respect from her husband.

Don't be late for dinner. Yes.

He got his dessert already. Yes.

Then she drove the tent peg through his temple into the ground. So he died.

From the end of the case here, he was sleeping on his side. She put this tent peg in his temple and then drove it all the way through his head into the ground. I don't know if my wife's got enough strength to use this thing. I hope she doesn't after this story.

So he died. Verse 22. When Barak came looking for Cicerra, Jael went out to meet him. She said, Come in! Come! And I will show you the man you are looking for! How did she know?

How did she know who we're looking for? So he followed her into the tent and found Cicerra lying there dead with the tent peg through his temple. So on this day, Israel saw God defeat Jabin, the Canaanite. And from that time on, Israel became stronger and stronger against King Jabin until they finally destroyed him, led by Barak. Led by Barak. Does that explain the reason why in the Hebrews chapter 11, the faith chapter, that Barak is mentioned there?

Sometimes I think a lot of us men just need a little kick in the tail. We need to step up to the plate. We need an example. Thankfully, my wife gives me great examples so many times, as many of you men can attest to. So as I wrap this up today, I'd like you to go, and we're going to look at just a couple of verses in chapter 5 because chapter 5 and verse 1 says, On the day Deborah and Barak sang this song, because this became a famous song that the children of Israel had for years, and they knew this song, but this song told the story. So let's just look at a few verses as we wrap this up because I want you to understand what a powerful woman this was. What a wonder woman this woman was. She saw the victory before the battle had ever begun. Why? Because God was with her, and she was with God. You want an incredible victory?

See it. See it through God's eyes. Draw close to God, and He will draw near to you if James has his words correct. She did.

Chapter 5 and verse 2, Israel's leaders took charge, and the people gladly followed. Praise the Lord, says this song. Listen, you kings, pay attention, you mighty rulers, for I will sing to the Lord. I will make music to the Lord, the God of Israel. Turn into verse 7.

Oh, let's go to verse 6. In the days of Shamgard, son of Anath, and the days of Jael, you know, we just saw her, people avoided the main roads. They avoided the main roads. Just like what we talked about. Why? And travelers stayed on winding pathways going up through the mountains. They couldn't travel on these because it was so dangerous. There were few people left in the village of Israel until Deborah arose as the mother of Israel. It's not only is she considered a prophet and prophetess and a judge, but they consider her like the mother, someone to look to, someone who would take care of her like mothers often do. When Israel chose new gods, war erupted in the cities. Yet not a shield or spear could be seen among 40,000 warriors in all of Israel. My heart is with the commanders of Israel for those who volunteered for war. Of all of Israel, there wasn't swords. The whole army, if they could put it together, would be 40,000 is seen. But not if one of them had a sword. They just had sticks like this. And yet he called 10,000. Had to do it again with, he wanted to be more impressive with Gideon, right? When he came in time with the judges. Called 10,000 out, and then he said, no, no, no, don't need that. Let me show you that I really am in charge.

Go down to verse 13. Down from Tabar marched the few against the nobles. The people of the Lord marched against the mighty warriors. They came down from Ephraim, a land that once belonged to the Amalekites. They followed you, Benjamin, with your troops. So Benjamin gave a little help.

But it says in verse 15, the princes of Issachar were with Deborah and Barak. They followed Barak, rushing into the valley. But in the tribe of Judah, there was great indecision. Look on your map where Judah is. I mean, where Reuben is. Reuben's saying, no, no, no, don't want any part of that. Well, guess what? You're going to be named in this song that's going to be sung for hundreds and hundreds of years because of your indecision.

Verse 16, yes, in the tribe of Reuben, there was great indecision. Gilead, which was actually Gadd, remained east of the Jordan. Why did Dan stay at home? It said. Asher set unmoved at the seashore, remaining in the harbors. Here was Asher up here, right up here at the very top. They were closest to it. They could have come right down, but they didn't do it. And God called them out.

Deborah called them out. They had no faith. They were scared.

They lived by sight and not by faith. But in verse 18, Bezebulun risked his life, as did Naphtali, on the heights of the battlefield. The kings of Canaan came and fought near the Megiddo Springs, but they carried off no silver treasures.

It's interesting you can go and check a battle that took place between the French and the Arabs in 1799. And it took place in the Jezreel Valley. It took place on the Kishon River.

And when they sent the reports back, people reading it couldn't believe it, because it almost matched this very thing as the rains came suddenly during that battle.

Check out a history report. 1799, which will happen in April. I'll give you the exact date. April the 6th, 1799. The Arab nations were swept away in the Kishon River in the incredible battle. But as we wrap up here, I'd like you to go down to verse 28.

Here, verse 28, chapter 5, from the window, Cicero's mother looked out. Through the window, she watched for his return, saying, Why is a chariot so long and coming? Why don't we hear the sound of the chariot's wheels? This is Cicero's mother, so it's almost like, Oh, my son, my son.

Oh, where is he? Where is he? Kind of makes you almost feel sorry for, as this mother is wondering where her child is, doesn't it? No. Let's read the rest of the story. Verse 29, her wise women answered, and she repeated these words to herself. They must be dividing the captured plunder with a woman or two for every man. They were going to make slaves, wholesale rape. They were going to come in and just take everything. With a woman or two for every man, there will be colorful robes for Cicero and colorful embroidered robes for me. What a mother. What a mother. All she's thinking about was herself. Where's my son with all the booty and return with all this stuff? You have to plunder the robes on both sides. Verse 31, Lord, may all your enemies die like Cicero, but may those who love you rise like the sun in all of its power.

Brethren, we just read an incredible story that took place about 150 years before King David, about 120 years after Joseph had left the scene. It's a story for us that tells us God can use incredible women as an example. And, brethren, Father knows they don't exist on TV, but this one, our movies, like the Wonder Woman, but God gave us an example in all of Israel of His Wonder Woman.